Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Ball Z.
An: I replaced the previous chapter with another one that I thought flowed better as a narrative. I hope everyone enjoys this chapter as well.
Summary: Everyone knows that Saiyans have a long life. When Bulma is reborn, Vegeta finds himself with the annoying task of wooing Bulma all over again.
Second Chances Changes Nothing and Everything
Chapter 28: Interlude III
17 lived a quiet, solitary life. It was the kind of existence that 19 would have wanted if he had lived. It was humble, docile, and calm. It was everything 17 wasn't by nature, but he managed. There was no fighting, no hunting down Goku, no warpath or destruction. He lived unobtrusively, his new way of life more in honor of 19 than anything else.
Other than 18, no one really bothers him so far out in the woods. The only other exception to his peace had been a little lilac haired boy and his spiky haired friend who came to his house in order to fight.
"Come out demon!" a little childish voice called.
"Ne, that's not very nice," another child-like voice said.
"Who cares?! It's a demon! We're going to beat it!"
17 opened his door to see two children standing in front of his house waiting. The moment they saw him, they jumped back in surprise and hastily got into familiar battle stances. He recognized the movement before he recognized the familiar facial features the children had.
The saiyan prince and Goku's brats, his mind supplied.
There was an oddly determined look on the lilac hair child's face and a reluctant one on the spiky-hair child.
"Charge!" The lilac one yelled. The children vanished in a burst of speed. Working together, the lilac hair child aimed high for his head while the other child aimed low for his knees. He could feel the raw power behind the blows as it connected with his jaw and leg.
They had speed. They had power. They obviously had talent, but they were young and inexperience.
17 was superior to them in every way.
He grabbed their fist and leg in his hands and he stared down at twin expressions of amazement and gaped jaws. If he choose to, he could shatter the bones in their wrist and ankle. It wouldn't kill them, but the pain would incapacitate them enough for him to drop the children back with their fathers.
'Why not just kill them and get it over with?' the thought came.
For one brief moment, he considered it.
Something must have shown on his face, because the boys grew pale as they struggled to get out of his hold.
17 looked down at the two-half saiyans he had in his grasp.
The Old 17 wouldn't have hesitated to destroy anything that attacked him.
The New 17 was still trying to adjust to living peacefully.
17 released them.
Jumping back, the boys warily took another stance.
"I have soda," he said with a blank expression. It might have been a while since he was human, but he still remembered that offering beverages to company was still the polite thing to do.
"Really?!" The spiky hair child forgot all about the battle and happily rocked on his feet.
The lilac haired one gave him a distrustful look. He took his way too trusting friend by the ear and they escape.
...
The next time they came to challenge him, 17 gave them a swifter defeat. He stood over them as the boys laid stunned on the ground. The bruises to their pride hurt worst than the physical pain 17 inflicted on them, though it seem to affect the lilac hair boy more than his friend. He could see the resentment swimming in all too blue eyes.
In another life, he destroyed this child's life. In turn, the child destroyed him. It seems like they were always destined to have bad blood between them.
They locked eyes.
"Ne," the sound of another voice broke through their staring match. The boy who looked so much like Goku looked sheepish. "Can I have that soda?"
"Idiot!" The lilac hair one has just enough energy to throttle his friend.
They came almost every week after that to battle. 17 could set his clock by them. He actually has soda in his fridge ready, though only the spiky hair child ever took the offer.
After they hit their teen years, the boys rarely came around and eventually, the visits stopped altogether.
17 forgot about them until he saw them again thirty years later.
Lingering in the back of the crowd at Bulma Brief's funeral, he saw a lilac hair man in mourning and right next to him was the spiky hair friend.
Trunks Brief hadn't change much. That glaze still held a lot of bitterness and anger. Most of it unsurprisingly seemed to be directed at Vegeta who impassive looked on. Trunks's knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists. He side-eyed his father before he managed to lock glazes with 17.
A look of recognition passed through Trunks's eyes.
17 wasn't surprise when the man showed up at his home later, energy barely suppressed.
With an angry roar, Trunks Brief attacked.
They fought for hours, trading furious blows and punches, neither one gaining the upper hand, until they were exhausted.
After the battle, 17 ended up carrying an unconscious Trunks back into his house. They were both beaten to hell (Trunks had come a long way since he was a child. The bruises he gave to 17 would ache later), but for the first time in a long while, 17 felt alive. He felt a thrumming in his blood that came with a good fight.
17 looked down at the body sleeping on his couch before deciding to go to bed himself. He grabbed the first aid kit on his way to his bedroom and he tiredly treated the worst of his wounds and scrapes. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.
He slept soundly thanks to the exhaustion.
When he woke the next morning, the couch was empty.
Trunks showed up later for another spar and another and another after that until it became the only outlet for the grief and pain. Bit by bit, he worked his aggression out and 17 allowed him that. He understood in a way. He buried a wife and two children. He had to watch as they grew old and fragile while he stay young.
Living forever, or close to it, was a heavy burden.
Around spring, Trunks began to get over his grief. His attacks are less lethal and less anger base. The frown line between his brow (that he obviously inherited from his father) slowly disappeared. They were, against all odds, friends. Or at least they were good sparring partners. It became a common event now, Trunks heading over to train with 17.
For the next century, Trunks becomes an almost welcomed guest in his home.
"He's here a lot," 18 commented one day.
They sat in his kitchen.
17 looked up from his cup of tea and blinks.
"Trunks Brief," 18 decided to clarify.
"I suppose," 17 shrugged.
18 doesn't say anything more.
Normally, he would have been the one to fill the silence (18 was generally more reserved and quiet), but something about 18's words made him cautious. When it came time for her to leave, she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him an indescribable look.
"Be careful," she said.
"Of what?" he frowned.
She gave him that 'look', the one she brought out when ever she thought that he was being particular slow.
"Never-mind," she said.
She walked out with two fingers in the air as a gesture of good-bye.
...
'So that's what she means,' 17 realized.
He dodged another kick in the air before grabbing Trunks's arm. At his touch the saiyan faltered slightly. 17's sensors picked up the way Trunks's pulse and heartbeat seem to go up. It happened every time 17 got close and then it went back to normal when they were at a distance. Even if he could chalk the symptoms to the fact that they had been sparring for hours without break, the telling blush was hard to miss.
The saiyan couldn't meet his eyes.
"I've got to go." Trunks doesn't wait for reply before he takes off.
He's nothing more than a streak in the distance.
Trunks doesn't bother to show up for their weekly sparring match after that. He doesn't show up the next week or the week after that. In fact, the visits stopped altogether just like the years before. 17 should have known better. Members of the Brief family tended to be intelligent, but absentminded. Their attention span was about as short as their tempers. Trunks's attention must have run its course.
17 looked towards the sky and frowned.
...
There was a knock at his front door and he found his normally unruffled twin on his doorstep looking worn.
"I found him," she said. It took him a few moments before it registered who 'him' even was. Ah, so his sister had finally found her wayward husband. She looked oddly pensive and not as happy as he thought she would be at the news. "He's different..."
"How?" Curiosity killed the cat, but he honestly wanted to how his brother-in-law had changed. If he was anything like the namek, who was reborn with blond curls and dark eyes and sulking cherubic looks to boot, then maybe the new form was just as amusing.
"He's taller," 18 frowned. "and he has hair."
"Blond?" 17 honestly couldn't resist.
18 gave him a warning look.
17 held up a hand in surrender, though he couldn't help the smirk.
"He has an artificial arm, possibly a leg," she mummer.
The smirk was wiped off 17's face.
"I can smell the oil on him," 18 continued. Her eyes began to get a distant look in them.
The execrating pain of having their bodies reformed...
The confusion of being human one moment and monsters the next...
The horror of realizing what they become...
The nightmares still never fully went away even after all these years. They were just better at controlling it. Krillin, in his offhanded goofy way had always managed to make 18 forget everything. In this lifetime, it seems like he would always make her remember.
17 almost laughed at the irony.
"His mother was reborn as well."
There was no question in his mind who 'he' was.
Against his better judgement, he had to ask. "How did he take it?"
Trunks should be happy to have his mother back.
"Disturbing well," 18 gave him a side eyed look. "considering that he would have two fathers now."
17 couldn't help himself.
Once he managed to get his laughter under control, he reached over to tug at 18's hair. It was a habit left over from before Gero. It was his way to reassuring her.
"Don't worry about it," he told her. Taller or not taller, hair or without hair, artificial limbs or not, Krillin will still be the same idiot who practically worshiped the ground 18 walks on.
There are some things that are just too ingrained in the soul.
...
17 doesn't tell 18 about the visitor that showed up at his doorstep hours after she left. The boy with shockingly white hair and cold eyes sat across his kitchen table.
Freiza was before his time, but the stories lived up to the hype. Even human, Freiza was a force to be reckon with.
Freiza slid a photograph across the table.
Gero's image stares balefully out of the photo.
A century's worth of disdain and bitterness churns through him.
Like he told his sister. There are some things that are just too ingrained in the soul.
It turns out that anger was his.
"I'll give him to you," Freiza said. "Consider it a gift for a pending friendship."
Gero...killing him the first time wasn't enough. Not by a long shot. Here was his second chance. This time when he destroys Gero, he'd take his time to draw out the suffering the way Gero took his time taking him and 18 apart. Gero won't have a quick death like before.
"What do I have to do?" 17 asked coolly.
Freiza smiled.
